Samsung to kick off five a side tournament for retail staff

8/16/2013 10:21:39 AM
Samsung to kick off five a side tournament for retail staff

Samsung is to reward retail and call centre staff by setting up the largest free 5-a-side football tournament in the UK.

The Galaxy Cup starts in November this year, but teams can be submitted from 19 August. Up to 512 teams will take part across two leagues, dotted around 32 Goals Soccer Centres nationwide. Teams that manage to negotiate the league stages and get through a play-off round will take part in the semi-finals at St George’s Park, England’s new training facility. The eight winners will then get to contest the finals at Stamford Bridge, the home of Samsung-sponsored Chelsea FC.

Samsungsaid the large proportion of 18-25 year old males working in retail and their passion for football was the main reason behind the incentive, although links with Chelsea means it ‘fits quite nicely’. The partners’ communication portal, ‘Backstage’, was the place Samsung did its research when devising the reward. The portal has about ’50,000 actively engaging people’ registered, while it is hoped that 2,000 of them will be able to participate.

The Korean manufacturer recruited Sky Sports’ Geoff Shreeves to compile match highlights and commentary for employees to view via Backstage. Celebrities and ex-professional footballers will take part throughout the season, although Samsung won’t offer any names yet. UK and Ireland marketing director Ines van Gennip revealed that some ‘cheeky involvement’ from members of the current Chelsea squad may be on the cards.

van Gennip said: ‘It’s something that we have been working on for quite a while. We wanted to say a massive thank-you to all the people working in the UK and Ireland for all the support they’ve given throughout the year. We looked at the profile of the people on Backstage and reached out to a number of them to understand what they’re passionate about. It was very clear quite early on in the process that football was the number one passion for them.’